With Resurrection, Bi Gan delivers one of the boldest and most ambitious films of 2025, a hallucinatory odyssey that blurs time, memory, and what it means to be human. Emerging from the festival circuit with notable buzz and a reputation for eliciting polarized reactions, the film asks audiences to surrender to its own shifting realities, promising a unique cinematic experience for those willing to go along for the ride.
Catch Resurrection in theaters beginning December 11th at the Laemmle Royal and December 14th at the Laemmle Glendale, with post-showing Q&As with director Bi Gan following the 7:10 p.m. showing on Saturday the 13th, the 4 p.m. show on the 14th (at the Royal), and both the 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. shows at Glendale on the 14th.
In Resurrection, humanity has traded its ability to dream for immortality. Only one man—an enigma known only as the “Fantasmer,” portrayed by Jackson Yee—continues to dream. His journey propels us through various eras of Chinese history, from silent-film-era tableaux to the turbulence of war, from stylized noir to near-futuristic club scenes. Alongside him, Shu Qi plays a figure from the present who becomes entangled in his visions. Together, they traverse an uncertain landscape where dreams and reality collide, and where cinema becomes the medium for resurrection itself.
Bi Gan builds Resurrection as a kaleidoscopic collage rather than following a traditional narrative. Chapters flit by, each done in its own style: gothic horror, dreamlike fantasy, gritty noir, romantic tragedy, and beyond, each new iteration shifting tone, genre, and even logic itself. Ultimately, the film is less a story than a meditation on history, memory, identity, and the cinematic act. Period-specific cinematography, color palettes, and soundscapes dissolve into one another; time feels elastic, uncanny, haunted. The direction suggests that history isn’t linear, but rather layered, fragmented, haunted by what’s remembered as well as what’s repressed.
That boldness has divided viewers. Some hail the film as a triumph, a vividly realized vision of cinema in all its possibilities, and a sensory experience that stretches the imagination. Others find the abstraction disorienting, the emotional core elusive, or the structure too slippery for narrative comfort. Even among its admirers, there’s a clinging sense that Resurrection demands patience—or better yet, submission to its dream logic.
Still, for fans of experimental cinema, Resurrection feels like a return to something all-too-rare: an audacious and immersive cinematic odyssey that’s unafraid to wander through memory and myth. It isn’t a film to understand so much as feel, one that continues to resonate long after the credits have faded.
For those willing to take the leap, Resurrection poses a haunting question: What if cinema could resurrect not just images, but forgotten dreams? What if memory and desire, when filtered through light and sound, could transcend time? Resurrection doesn’t supply its own answers, but it does offer something even rarer: a place to dream again.
“A marvelously maximalist movie of opulent ambition.” – Jessica Kiang, Variety
“A time-tripping, genre-jumping paean to the big screen.” – Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter